Battle  of  Jfort  mtlasbinaton 


ST.  rAUL~S  CHAPE'.,  TxlNT^Y  PARiSH.  MEW  YORK 


Fc"  Fort  Wasliingtcn  ChapUr 

au^hters  of  the  American  Revolution 


The  Fanwood  Prhss, 
1914 


lEx  IGtbrtB 


SEYMOUR  DURST 


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DEIvIVKRRD  ON  THE  IJSTH  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  Q 

Battle  of  fort  Masbington 

AT 

ST.  PAUL'S  CHAPEL,  TRINITY  PARISH,  NEW  YORK 


By  Rev.  WM.  MONTAGUE  GEER,  S.T.D.,  Vicar 


For  Fort  Washington  Chapter 

Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution 


1^  *% 


The  Fanwood  Press. 
1914 


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the  Internet  ^ 

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ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESS. 


EMBERS  of  the  Fort  Washington  Chapter  of  the 
Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution,  you  are  most 
welcome  in  St.  Paul's  Chapel  for  the  celebration  of 
the  one  hundred  and  thirty-eighth  anniversary  of  the  Battle  of 
Fort  Washington.  This  Chapel  ought  to,  and  doubtless  does, 
seem  like  home  to  you,  because  in  yonder  pew,  as  you  know, 
George  Washington  worshipped  from  1789  to  1791,  of  which 
the  tale  is  told  very  briefly  in  his  diary  in  his  own  handwrit- 
ing as  regularly  as  Sunday  came  round,  "Went  to  St.  Paul's 
Chapel  in  the  forenoon;"  and,  immediately  after  his  inaugura- 
tion as  First  President  of  the  United  States,  on  April  30,  1789, 
George  Washington,  with  both  Houses  of  Congress,  came  in 
procession  to  this  Chapel,  where  an  appropriate  Service  was 
held  by  Bishop  Provoost,  Chaplain  of  the  Senate,  and  a  solemn 
Te  Deum  was  sung. 

There  is  one  other  important  reason  why  your  Chapter 
should  feel  at  home  in  St.  Paul's  Chapel.  This  is  the  neigh- 
borhood in  which  the  buildings  stood  where  so  many  of  the 
prisoners,  taken  captive  in  the  Battle  of  Fort  Washington,  suf- 
fered the  tortures  of  most  cruel  imprisonment — the  long,  low, 


4 


annlvcraarie  Hi)6rc00 


two-story  structure,  which  stood  in  what  is  now  City  Hall 
Park,  near  Murray  Street,  the  Sugar  House  on  what  is  now 
Liberty  Street,  and  the  Middle  Dutch  Church  on  the  corner  of 
Cedar  and  Nassau  Streets.  Here  are  the  streets  on  which  the 
feet  of  those  heroes  might  have  walked  to  freedom,  if  they 
had  been  willing  to  save  their  lives,  which  they  were  not  will- 
ing to  do,  by  enlisting  under  the  British  flag  ;  and  the  riug- 
ing  of  the  bell  of  this  Chapel  must  often  have  been  heard  by 
those  prisoners,  reminding  them,  in  their  dreadful  captivity, 
of  God,  of  Christ,  of  liberty,  and  of  home.  There  is  a  sense 
then,  in  which  the  vicinity  of  St.  Paul's  Chapel,  put  now  to 
strange  and  interesting,  if  not  always  inspiring,  uses,  to  you 
should  be  holy  ground. 

The  time  limitations  of  a  service  held  here  at  mid-day  are  such 
that  it  will  be  impossible  to  give  any  detailed  account  of  the 
Battle  of  Fort  Washington  ;  but  details  are  not  called  for  in  this 
presence,  because  they  are  probably  more  familiar  to  you  than 
those  of  any  other  of  the  chief  battles  of  the  Revolution.  But  by 
way  of  reminder,  and  for  the  benefit  of  others  who  are  present 
and  welcome  at  this  Service,  some  mention  should  be  made  of  the 
most  important  facts. 

The  Battle  of  Fort  Washington  was  preceded  by  some  of  the 
gloomiest  hours  of  the  Revolution.  It  marked  the  darkest  day 
of  American  History,  the  midnight  of  American  Liberty  ;  and 
the  rising  of  the  day-star  of  hope  in  the  hearts  of  the  Colonists 


5 


seemed  indeed  far  away.    The  Fort  had  been  constructed  most 
carefully  and  with  great  skill.    It  was  manned  by  not  far  from 
three  thousand  soldiers,  and  the  duty  of  this  little'^army  was  to 
keep  the  enemy  from  taking  possession  of  Manhattan  Island. 
Noble  and  heroic  was  the  struggle  that  was  made  in  defense  of 
the  fort.    But,  well  aware  of  the  importance  of  the  position,  Sir 
William  Howe  (as  history  tells  us)  "  attacked  the  fort  with  the 
strongest  army  which  up  to  that  time  had  ever  left  the  shores  of 
Great  Britain,  while  the  soldiers  in  the  fort  consisted,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Maryland  Regiment,  mostly  of  untrained  farm- 
ers, poorly  supplied,  and  serving  practically  without  pay."  This 
army  had  suffered  from  mutiny  among  its  junior  commissioned 
officers,   from  desertions  and  treachery,    shameful    waste  of 
provisions,  deplorable  inattention  in  some  camps  to  decency  and 
cleanliness  ;  but  history  also  tells  us  that  *'  these  were  the  small 
shadows  on  a  broad  picture  of  unselfish  devotion  to  duty,  and 
that  no  more  heroic  devotion  has  ever  been  recorded  than  that 
exhibited  by  these  plain  enlisted  soldiers  and  militiamen."  It 
was,  however,  the  will  of  the  God  of  battles  that,  one  hundred 
and  thirty- eight  years  ago  to-day,  those  three  thousand  troops 
under  Magaw,  one  of  the  greatest  heroes  of  the  Revolution,  after 
doing  all  that  lay  in  the  power  of  men  to  do,  surrendered  to 
overwhelming  numbers  of  the  enemy  ;  but  not  until  five  hundred 
Hessians  had  bought  the  victory  with  their  lives,  and  de- 
fense was  no  longer  possible.     Prisoners  of  war  they  were 


called,  but  really,  as  the  writer  says,  "  they  were  executed,  most 
of  them  by  slow  torture  on  the  English  ships  ;  and  so  the  black- 
est page  in  English  History  was  written."  But  Americans 
tinder  Washington  were  on  guard  during  those  midnight  hours. 
Their  diminished  army  was  chased  by  the  enemy  from  the  Hud- 
son to  the  Delaware,  and  across  the  Delaware  to  Pennsylvania  ; 
but  shortly  afterward  they  appeared  before  the  British  at  Trenton 
and  won  a  great  victory,  taking  one  thousand  English  soldiers 
prisoners  of  war.  Seven  days  later  Washington  attacked 
Princeton  and  won  the  day,  defeating  Cornwallis,  capturing 
many  prisoners.  Then  followed  Saratoga  in  a  few  months, 
and  the  downfall  of  Bargoyne.  After  that  came  the  winter 
at  Valley  Forge,  followed  with  alternate  defeat  pnd  victory 
by  Camden,  King's  Mountain,  Eutaw  Springs,  and  finally 
Yorktown.  "The  news"  (in  the  words  of  the  historian) 
**  was  sent  by  swift  messengers  to  every  corner  of  the  American 
nation  which  had  just  been  born  ;  it  was  carried  as  fast  as 
horse  and  rider  could  go — the  news  that  America  was  free." 
If  the  brave  soldiers  in  Fort  Washington  had  only  known  it, 
how  comforted  they  would  have  been  by  the  cry,  "It  is  indeed 
midnight  but  all  is  well!"  for  all  was  in  the  hand  of  God,  who 
was  on  his  throne  of  love  and  power.  Proud,  indeed,  ought  the 
descendants  of  such  men  to  be. 

Time  must  be  cruelly  economized  in  order  that  two  facts  of 
interest  to  us  to-day  may  not  be  ignored  or  forgotten.    We  are 


7 


thinking  and  talking  in  the  House  of  God,  of  the  heroism  of 
American  soldiers  one  hundred  and  thirty-eight  years  ago, 
while,  incredible  as  it  may  seem  and  appalling  as  it  certainly 
is,  the  greatest  war  the  world  has  ever  known  is  raging  among 
the  Nations  of  Europe.  We  are  talking  in  this  House  of  God 
about  the  Battle  of  Fort  Washington,  while  the  only  real 
world-war  the  world  has  ever  known  is  in  progress  on  the 
other  side  of  the  water.  Let  us  give  some  thought  to  these 
facts,  because  it  surely  must  be  true  that,  since  God  is  "  nearer 
to  us  than  breathing,  closer  than  hands  and  feet,"  we  cannot 
think  of  him  as  not  sustaining  a  most  intimate  relation  to 
battles  fought  by  his  children,  who  are  losing  their  lives  by 
hundreds  of  thousands.  The  present  war  is  on  too  colossal  a 
scale  to  admit  of  the  Moral  Governor  of  the  universe  being 
eliminated  from  U  in  our  thoughts. 

Time-limitations  make  it  impossible  to  do  more  than  submit 
a  few  general  principles,  which  call  loudly  but  in  vain  for 
elaboration.  First--The  war-gate  is  God's  private  entrance 
into  national  life  which  man  cannot  close,  not  even  with  the  aid 
of  peace-conferences,  multiplied  treaties,  Hague-tribunals,  and 
peace  banquets  at  the  Waldorf-Astoria  at  ten  dollars  a  plate. 
Nor  is  what  Chesterton  well  calls  "plutocratic  pomposity"  of 
the  slightest  value  in  matters  of  such  high  importance. 

If  the  antithesis  of  war  were  peace  and  simple  old-fashion- 
ed living,  with  the  husband  and  father  at  the  plough,  the  wife 


8 


and  mother  at  the  spindle,  and  the  children  morally  and 
spiritually  cared  for  ;  and  if  these  condition  prevailed  all  over 
the  world,  it  would  be  well  nigh  impossible  to  pass  from  peace 
to  war.  But  in  these  days  this  is  not  at  all  the  kind  of  peace 
which  is  the  opposite  of  military  warfare.  There  are  many 
kinds  of  antitheses  of  military  warfare.  One  ^oes  by  the 
name  of  peace,  but  is  really  industrial  warfare,  which  has  its 
own  ways  of  making  widows  and  orphans,  necessitating  child- 
labor,  manufacturing  multi-millionaires  in  large  numbers,  in- 
creasing the  army  of  the  unemployed  and  of  underpaid  women 
and  girls,  many  of  whom  are  forced  to  choose  between  starvation 
and  immorality.  These  evils  are  easily  stated,  but  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  they  can  be  remedied,  for  no  dependence  can  be 
placed  upon  socialism,  which  would  only  make  matters  worse 
than  they  are.  But  what  we  are  interested  in,  in  considering  in 
the  House  of  God  the  subject  of  war,  is  the  fact  that  it  is  easy 
to  pass  from  a  state  of  industrial  warfare,  full  of  such  abomina- 
tions, to  a  ^tate  of  military  warfare,  which  after  all  is  only 
full  of  other  kinds  of  abominations,  without  God  showing  Him- 
self specially  interested  to  prevent  man  having  his  own  way  in 
the  matter. 

This  becomes  clearer  to  our  minds,  I  think,  when  we  remember 
that  God  cannot  be  greatly  moved  by  the  fact  that  men  die  on 
the  battlefield,  by  the  thousand  or  hundreds  of  thousands, 
because  men  are  dying  all  the  time  by  His  fiat,  and  leaving 


Bnnivecearc  U^^tces 


9 


widows  and  orphans  behind  them  ;  and  no  man  dies  on  the  battle- 
field who  would  have  escaped  death  if  there  had  been  no  fighting- 
And  when  among  the  other  real  opposites  of  war  you  find 
luxury  and  extravagance,  also  the  results  of  industrial  warfare, 
leading  on  to  greater  and  greater  moral  laxity,  expressing  itself  in 
an  increasing  number  of  divorces,  in  immoral  fiction  and  a  corrupt 
drama,  it  becomes  still  easier  to  believe  that  God  is  not  as 
interested  as  well-to-do  men,  who  have  staked  their  all  on  peace, 
wish  He  were  in  preserving  peace  among  the  nations.  The 
artist  Leighton  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  '  *  the  arts  of  luxury  are 
more  deadly  than  the  arts  of  war."  The  case  becomes  clearer 
still  when  we  find  that  the  religion  of  the  Incarnate  Son  of  God, 
Jesus  Christ  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  is  being  more  and  more 
dispensed  with  and  pushed  one  side,  in  all  the  strata  of  intellectual 
life,  from  our  colleges  and  universities  down  to  our  de-Chris- 
tianized Public  Schools,  and  in  all  the  strata  of  social  and 
industrial  life,  from  our  multi-millionaires  (some  of  them 
possessors  of  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars),  down  to  the 
unemployed  classes,  perhaps  the  saddest  men  in  God's  world 
to-day,  whose  numbers  seem  to  be  daily  on  the  increase.  If  time 
permitted,  more  light  could  be  thrown  on  what  we  have  reason 
to  believe  is  God's  evident  willingness  that  man  should  put  a 
torch  to  a  kind  of  civilization  which  man  himself  had  made,  and 
which  is  in  very  serious  measure  wholly  unacceptable  to  God  ; 
and  that  is  just  what  is  going  on  in  Europe  at  this  moment,  for 


to 


we  are  plainly  told  that  God  is  a  jealous  God,  that  He  is  "a 
consuming  fire. "  Well  may  we  cry,  "  O  God,  wherefore  art 
Thou  absent  from  us  so  long  ;  why  is  Thy  wrath  so  hot  against 
the  sheep  of  Thy  pasture?"  "  Look  upon  the  convenant  ;  for 
all  the  earth  is  full  of  darkness  and  cruel  habitations." 

And  there  is  another  ignored  or  forgotten  principle.  It  seems 
natural  for  man  to  think  that  the  farther  away  in  time  we  move 
from  the  Cross  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  safer  we  are  in  turning  our 
backs  upon  it ;  but  surely  exactly  the  opposite  of  this  must  be 
true.  The  farther  away  we  move  in  time  from  Calvary  and  the 
Open  Tomb,  the  more  is  expected  from  us  in  heartfelt  devotion 
to  His  religion  ;  and  it  is  because  the  nations  have  been  giving 
less  and  less  instead  of  more  and  more  devotion,  that  they  are 
to-day  suffering,  as  Cardinal  Farley  I  believe  truly  says,  from 
Divine  Vengeance  ;  because  no  real,  safe  and  continuous  progress 
is  possible,  independently  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son 
of  God. 

Shortly  before  the  war  I  heard  some  one  say,  '  *  It  seems  as  if  we 
are  on  the  edge  of  great  things  ;"  and  we  were,  but  not  the  great 
things  the  speaker  had  in  mind,  which  were  communicating  with 
the  alleged  inhabitants  of  Mars,  and  with  departed  spirits,  to- 
gether with  other  marvels  ;  whereas,  the  great  things  we  proved 
to  be  on  the  edge  of  were  the  most  appalling  sorrows  the  world 
has  ever  known.  Our  pride,  like  the  pride  of  the  builders  of  the 
Tower  of  Babel,  had  to  have  a  fall ;  and  it  is  safe  to  prophesy 


anniversary  BDDrcss 


11 


that  if  what  are  called  civilization  and  culture  are  restored  to  the 
world  by  the  labors  of  man  in  the  year  two  thousand,  and  if  they 
are  at  that  time  as  independent  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  as 
they  are  to-day,  the  Divine  Vengeance  will  fall  more  heavily 
upon  the  world  then  than  it  is  falling  now.  It  ought  to  be  far 
more  evident  than  it  is  that  the  very  nature  of  God,  as  revealed 
to  us  in  both  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  is,  under  certain  con- 
ditions, to  be  a  God  of  peace  ;  and  it  is  equally  His  nature,  under 
other  conditions,  to  be  a  God  of  war,  "  at  whose  word  the  stormy 
wind  ariseth."  Men  are  too  apt  to  carry  themselves,  like  the 
sailors  written  of  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  as  if  the  south 
wind  would  always  blow  softly,  instead  of  preparing  for  the  tem- 
pestuous wind,  called  Euroclydon,  which  is  now  upon  us.  To 
try  to  avoid  war  with  an  exceedingly  undeveloped  idea  of  God's 
relation  to  war  is  to  invite  war.  All  nations  should  be  wedded 
to  peace,  "  not  unadvisedly  or  lightly,  but  reverently,  discreetly, 
advisedly,  soberly,  and  in  the  fear  of  God,"  lest  the  marriage 
degenerate  into  divorce,  which  is  descriptive  of  European 
conditions  to-day. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  Why  take  time  at  this  Service  for  such 
a  line  of  thought  as  this?  Let  me  give  two  reasons  in  con- 
clusion. The  first  is  that  warning  may  again  be  uttered  that 
our  conditions  in  this  country  are  not  such  as  to  inspire  con- 
fidence that  we  can  depend  upon  God  to  save  us  from  the 
same  kind  of  sorrows  which  the  European  nations  are  bear- 


12 


Bnnlvcraarig  HOOrcee 


ing,  or,  not  impossibly,  greater  sorrows  Are  we  exalting  the 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ  in  this  country  ?  We  certainly  are 
not ;  and  there  are  many  other  most  unfavorable  conditions, 
too  numerous  to  mention  now.  They  are  perfectly  familiar 
to  you,  and  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  they  are  wholly 
unacceptable  to  God  ;  for  nations  as  well  as  individuals,  as  is 
again  being  proved  to  us,  can  be  brought  for  judgment  to  the 
bar  of  Divine  justice. 

The  second  reason  is  because  these  facts  and  principles 
about  God's  relation  to  war  help  to  give  wise  emphasis  to  the 
desirability  of  maintaining  such  organizations  as  the  Daughters 
of  the  American  Revolution.  The  saints  who  stand  highest 
on  your  calendar  are  those  mentioned  in  the  eleventh  Chapter 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  the  thirty  fourth  verse,  who 
"quenched  the  violence  of  fire,  escaped  the  edge  of  the  sword, 
out  of  weakness  were  made  strong  (as  our  American  soldiers 
were  after  the  defeat  at  Fort  Washington),  waxed  valiant  in 
fight,  turned  to  flight  the  armies  of  the  aliens."  How  thank- 
ful we  ought  to  be  that  soldiers  are  numbered  among  the 
Saints  of  God  in  that  wonderful  Chapter!  These  are  not  the 
times  when  we  can  afford  to  allow  the  soldier-spirit  to  die 
out  of  the  hearts  of  our  young  men  ;  although  it  has  been 
seriously  proposed  that  the  subject  of  wars  shall  be  taken  out 
of  our  school  books,  and  the  sport  of  firing  off  firecrackers  shall 
be  forbidden  to  boys,  lest  the  love  of  war  be  bred  within  them. 


Hnntvcraar^  B&£>jce«0 


13 


The  opposite  of  the  soldier-spirit  is  far  too  apt  to  be  effeminacy, 
love  of  luxury,  intemperance  and  immorality.  Some  soldiers 
may  indeed  make  a  bad  record  for  intemperance  and  immorality, 
but  the  evil  terminates  with  themselves  and  often  with  death. 
In  civil  life,  intemperance  and  immorality  exert  a  most  corrupt- 
ing influence  over  the  young  life  of  the  nation. 

And  lastly,  as  a  nation  we  are  set  in  the  midst  of  so  many  and 
great  dangers,  although  we  are  disposed  to  think  we  are  not,  that 
while  we  love  our  neighbor  we  must  not  only  not  tear  down  our 
fences;  we  must  make  them  strong  for  self -protection,  far  strong- 
er than  they  are  now  Evidently  these  are  days  when  seemingly 
impossible  things  take  place  ;  and  we  cannot  tell  what  God  has 
in  store  for  our  country.  The  great  Oriental  Nations  have  yet 
to  express  themselves,  they  have  yet  to  demand  "  their  place  in 
the  sun,"  and  to  back  their  demands  with  overwhelming  num- 
bers. What  that  may  mean  to  us,  in  the  future  near  or  remote, 
God  only  knows;  but  to  belittle  the  honorable  office  of  the  soldier 
and  not  to  give  both  soldiers  and  sailors,  in  proportion  to  our 
wealth,  full  advantage  of  all  that  modern  science  offers  them,  in 
the  way  of  a  reasonably  full  equipment  for  offensive  and 
defensive  action,  seems  to  be  unwisdom  raised  to  a  high  degree. 

For  these  and  other  good  reasons,  therefore,  Daughters  of  the 
American  Revolution,  you,  like  ail  similar  organizations  which 
have  held  Services  in  St.  Paul's  Chapel  (I  close  as  I  began),  are 
most  welcome  here,  and  the  benediction  of  God  in  Christ  Jesua 


14 


our  Lord  is  most  fervently  invoked  upon  you  and  upon  all 
patriotic  Societies. 

On  behalf  of  those  heroes  of  the  American  Revolution  now 
in  the  Paradise  of  God  whose  descendants  you  are,  we  are  glad 
to  offer  the  prayer  :  "  Let  light  everlasting  shine  upon  them,  O 
Lord,  and  grant  unto  them  eternal  rest  ;  "  and  give  us,  we  be- 
seech Thee,  their  love  of  country,  their  devotion  to  duty.  We 
ask  all  in  the  name  and  for  ihe  sake  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord, 
Amen. 


